At a recent house fire, the first due engine bypassed the closest hydrant because the idiot whose property it was on had repainted it. She had all sorts of other junk (lawn ornaments) in her yard, and it was assumed that the hydrant was another piece of crap in her yard. Come to find out, she had done the same thing a couple of years ago. The fire marshal made it clear that she couldn't do that and the water company repainted it.

This time she was arrested.

Hydrant color is important. In places like the article, it indicates who owns and maintains the hydrant. In other places, it is painted to be recognizable and for visibility . In still others, the hydrant colors indicate the amount of water the hydrant is capable of flowing (google "NFPA hydrant colors" for more information.)

BlousyBrown:The one in front of my house is yellow. Is that weird? Seems weird to me.

The colors have to do with the amount of pressure different hydrants have. As a new, micro-managing president of the institution I work for found out to his great cost, the fire department gets very annoyed and litigious when you send your maintenance workers out to paint all those different-colored hydrants a nice uniform shade of brown.

BarkingUnicorn:Wonder why it matters to firefighters who owns a hydrant. Maintenance workers, sure.

As a general rule, we try not to use privately-owned hydrants for firefighting. Commonly called "yard hydrants," they exist because a facility's insurance carrier requires them, or because a facility uses them for its own on-site remote water supply.

We avoid them because they're on a facility's service line, not on the main, which often leads to flow rates insufficient for firefighting. There are also maintenance issues; I know the city-owned hydrants are serviced and inspected but have no idea what kind of service a private company does. Finally, using a yard hydrant can steal water from the building's sprinkler system, since both the hydrant and sprinkler system are on the building's water service.

WireFire2:The colors of hydrants indicated the PSI and available flow of water. Usually the top is the important part and every jurisdiction is different. So don't mess with your hydrants they the way they are for good reasons.

Actually, fire hydrant colors are one of the few things about them that has any sort of national standardization. Cities can ignore the standards, but most places have started using the standard colors.

Of course, they can't be bothered to standardize things like the fittings. And yeah, Europe got this one right.

1. Didn't know what color the hydrant in his yard needed to be;2. Didn't know for sure if his gun was loaded or not;3. Responded to a note from the city "please repaint your hydrant" by getting drunk and threatening the guy who left it.

I mean, I try not to be judgemental, (oh, wait, no I don't) but does this guy sound like a bit of a douchebag and a lot of an idiot to anyone else?

Maybe he shoulda just planted shrubbery all around the hydrant so it disappears.

/Fire truck 12 here: "Where the F*CK is the f*cking damn hydrant on this street!!!"//Its so much fun when the town removes the shrubbery and the resident screams and makes threats, until they notice the officer in the police car a few doors down watching.

"Reed wrestled the gun away from Timmons and pushed it into the street, court documents say. He held Timmons to the ground until Camas police officers arrived around 6:30 p.m. and placed Timmons under arrest."

Not only was he a drunk asshole running around waving a gun, but then he let an unarmed person take it from him and make a citizen's arrest. What an idiot, I hope he's convicted and sentenced to serve a maximum sentence.